Utah State quarterback Chuckie Keeton, left, and BYU quarterback Taysom Hill were named to the Davey O'Brien Award watch list on Wednesday.

Deseret News archive

Summary

Both the Cougars' and Aggies' starting signal-callers joined the list of 39 of the nation's top college football quarterbacks.

A pair of quarterbacks from the state of Utah — BYU's Taysom Hill and Utah State's Chuckie Keeton — made the 39-player Davey O'Brien Award watch list released Wednesday morning.

Keeton is one of 19 seniors on the list, while Hill joins 12 other juniors from the FBS ranks to make the list. The Pac-12 leads all conferences with eight quarterbacks on the list.

Sixteen semifinalists for the Davey O'Brien Award, given annually to the nation's top quarterback, will be announced Nov. 3, with the names of three finalists set for release Nov. 24. The winner of the O'Brien award will be announced Dec. 11 on "The Home Depot College Football Awards" show.

Last year's O'Brien award winner, Florida State sophomore Jameis Winston, is on this year's watch list, along with five other semifinalists from a year ago: Brett Hundley of UCLA; Sean Mannion of Oregon State; Marcus Mariota of Oregon; Braxton Miller of Ohio State; and Bryce Petty of Baylor.

Keeton has thrown for 5,961 yards, 56 touchdowns and 13 interceptions during Aggie his career while added 1,153 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns. He was named to the Davey O'Brien Award watch list last season, and this offseason has also been named to watch lists for the Maxwell Award and College Football Performance Awards Quarterback of the Year.

Hill is coming off his first full season as a starter for the Cougars where he threw for 2,938 yards, 19 touchdowns and 14 interceptions while also rushing for a team-leading 1,344 yards and 10 touchdowns. Like Keeton, Hill is also on the watch lists for the Maxwell Award and CFPA Quarterback of the Year.

This season, Winston will try to become just the fourth quarterback to win the O'Brien award twice. BYU’s Ty Detmer (1990-91), Florida’s Danny Wuerffel (1995-96) and Oklahoma’s Jason White (2003-04) have accomplished this feat.

In addition to Detmer, BYU's Jim McMahon (1981) and Steve Young (1983) also won the Davey O'Brien Award.